I've been teaching for three weeks now and I'm enjoying it. It ain't easy, and some days I'm exhausted after my two classes (not the five I get to look forward to in the future) but it feels like the right fit for me. Today, I had to bring the sophmores down to the computer lab for a career choices survey.
It was good to help the sophmores learn about their own interests through a 180 question survey.
Fast forward twenty years and imagine...David the pimply dork who gets picked on endlessly, as a pilot...Robert the wrestler who is asleep in the back, as a fence-builder...Michael the very quiet, very polite, kid who seems unable to read out loud above a whisper, as an accountant...Miles the smart stoner as a detective or a special ed teacher...Derek the punk, the kid who I should have kicked out yesterday, as an architect (not likely, but hopefully the talk I had with him today helped a little)...Georgia the lip-pierced, Moulin Rouge-loving photographer/director...Alex the learning-disabled Physicist...Winston the trouble-kid, fighting-kid, kicked out of school-kid in real estate...Bridgette the mild-mannered nurse...Spike the well-intentioned, unmotivated, near-dropout, afraid of being stuck in his parents basement forever as a sheetmetal worker.
Funny to think of these kids and what they will become. A lot of the kids who were classified with "social tendencies" got some kind of teacher, elementary, secondary or professor. It was funny to see their reactions to being a teacher. I came to this conclusion: when one is still in high school, one thinks of becoming a teacher as close to death. Why on earth would anybody want to deal with me, or some of these other bozos, they must be thinking. When all you can think about is getting out of this place (high school) how can you possibly think of choosing to come back in? Well here I am. Crazy Mr. H., coming back in.
Mr. H
2 comments:
keep ya head up!
hey mr. h, it's laurie. I know I'm not the critical friend but I checked out your blog and wanted to comment. hope you don't mind.
I think it is interesting that you brought up envisioning the future of these students. I think of the same things quite often, to the point that part of me wants to get hired at the school i'm at just to even witness what most of my freshman will be like as seniors. I think it helps put things into prespective.
this weekend I had a taste of that "becoming an adult" as I was running around like a mad woman after a long night at a bar, and someone I just met stopped me and said "oh my gosh! I just remembered you're teaching high school english!"
It was an interesting moment for me, because it reminded me that people in general, not just our students, have these notions that we are not real people outside of what we do. It is something pretty unique to our profession, and something I have still not really come to terms with myself.
Like our students, we all embark on new roles and identity as life trudges on. Here's to hoping this one fits!
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